Cheers is a monthly listing of honors and awards received by faculty, staff and students plus recent appointments and promotions. Contributions must be submitted in writing and be accompanied by a phone number.

Applied Physics Laboratory

Jim Loesch, plant facilities chief engineer, has been elected a fellow in the International Facility Management Association's class of 2002.

APL is one of 25 Maryland organizations and individuals receiving a 2002 Innovator of the Year award from The Daily Record, a statewide business and legal daily newspaper. The innovation--an infrared thermal imaging tool for detecting life-threatening metabolic tumors--previously won APL's Invention of the Year award.

Bloomberg School of Public Health

Gerard Anderson, a professor of health policy and management, was selected as one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Health Care by Modern Healthcare magazine. Anderson was ranked at No. 29 on the readers' poll and is one of only four academics to make the magazine's list. Anderson is director of the school's Center for Hospital Finance and Management and director of the Partnership for Solutions initiative, which is working to improve the care and quality of life for millions of Americans with chronic health conditions. The magazine's list appears in the Sept. 2 issue.

Jean Nachega, an assistant scientist and director of field HIV/TB research studies, has received JHU's 2002 Center for AIDS Research Pilot Grant Award. Nachega and colleagues plan to use the $55,000 NIH-funded award to conduct community-based pilot studies in Africa with the goal of identifying treatment adherence strategies to prevent HIV drug resistance.

Centers and Affiliates

Lester M. Salamon, director of the Center for Civil Society Studies, was named to a list of The NonProfit Times' Power and Influence Top 50 for 2002. Noted the magazine, a business publication for nonprofit management, "Salamon continues to broaden the understanding of the nonprofit sector, not only in the United States but even in countries that barely realize they have nonprofit sectors."

Johns Hopkins Health System

Geoffrey Cundiff is the new chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Bayview. Previously director of Gyn/Ob at Hopkins Hospital, Cundiff earned his medical degree and completed his residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He was a fellow in urogynecology and endoscopy at Greater Baltimore Medical Center and a fellow in pelvic reconstructive surgery and urogynecology at Duke University Medical Center.

Leigh Ann Curl has joined the Department of Orthopedics at Bayview. A sports medicine, knee and shoulder surgeon, Curl is also the head team orthopedic surgeon for the Baltimore Ravens. Before joining Hopkins Bayview, she was an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and sports medicine at the University of Maryland Medical System and head team physician for the University of Maryland Terrapins. Curl received her medical degree at Hopkins, where she also completed her orthopedic residency.

Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

William Kotti has been named associate dean for resource planning and development, following a national search. Kotti joined the Krieger School Office of Development and Alumni Relations in April 2001, serving first as director of development and for the past four months as interim associate dean. This past spring, he directed the successful kickoff of the school's new fund-raising campaign, "Making a World of Difference." Kotti came to Hopkins from the University of South Carolina, where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's in public administration, and then worked as director of development for the College of Liberal Arts and in planned giving/major gifts.

School of Medicine

Richard L. Huganir, a professor of neuroscience and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has been selected treasurer-elect of the Society for Neuroscience. His tenure begins at the organization's annual meeting in November.

Lucas Restrepo, a clinical instructor in the Department of Neurology, has received a two-year $132,000 grant from the American Heart Association for his research on neurologic complications of coronary artery bypass surgery.

Kenneth Wilczek, assistant dean for clinical practice and executive director of the Clinical Practice Association, has been elected chairman of the steering committee for the Association of American Medical Colleges' Group on Faculty Practice.

Marc Williams, a Department of Neurology research associate, has been elected to the editorial board of the Journal of Hematotherapy and Stem Cell Research. Williams also has been named an associate editor of Discovery Medicine, a journal produced by several Hopkins researchers that reports on important findings published in major biomedical media.

Research to Prevent Blindness, the world's leading voluntary organization supporting eye research, has awarded the Department of Ophthalmology a $110,000 grant for research into the causes, treatment and prevention of blinding eye diseases. Department chairman Morton F. Goldberg will direct the research. RPB also has given a $55,000 Lew R. Wasserman Merit Award to James J. Handa, an associate professor of ophthalmology, for his work on age-related macular degeneration.

The National Board of Medical Examiners has chosen Jessica Bienstock, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology; Emily Frosch, an assistant professor of psychiatry; and Charles Wiener, an associate professor of physiology and pulmonary medicine, as members of committees that develop and review the items that make up the United States Medical Licensing Examination.

Medbank of Maryland, a program that provides free drugs to low-income, underinsured, chronically ill patients, was one of the 2002 Innovator of the Year awardees sponsored by The Daily Record. Robert McEwan, administrative director of Hopkins' Comprehensive Transplant Center, founded Medbank of Maryland.

Biological chemistry postdoc Thomas Hofmann, working with professor Craig Montell, has been awarded a Human Frontier Science Program Long-Term Fellowship for his project, "The Physiological Role of Melastatinlike Channels (TRPMs) in Cell Function and Development." The Human Frontier Science Program, launched in 1990 by various national governments and the European Union, provides funding to encourage international scientific collaboration. Long-term fellowships provide three years of support for postdoctoral fellows to obtain training in a new area of research in outstanding laboratories in another country.